Madness Maketh Man
by TheFirstStranger7
Summary: Not that different, but not that similar, follow the life of a man who was chosen to be in the glorious utopia of Rapture. It was his genius and potential that got him there, now it'll be his courage, strength, and determination that will keep him alive in the nightmares to come.


**Hello, folks. A new fanfic I'll be making**

 **I think/hope this'll be the first of its kind you all have ever seen, and I hope you'll therefore read and comment accordingly.**

 **Enjoy!**

 **DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN BIOSHOCK.**

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 _When you think of the term "alternate reality," you most likely think that of a separate universe that is vastly different compared to our own. You would be correct, and also incorrect. True, there are realities that hold great contrast in all the meaningful ways- man never made it to the moon, Hitler won the war, metahumans band together as a police force-but there are not all that way._

 _The best way to simply put it is for you to imagine a mirror and the reflection it shows. That reflection would be the first reality you come across, one that is similar to your own, but uniquely reflected in its own right. Now picture that mirror held up in front of another mirror. Same concept, but both reflections reflect each other, creating numerous reflections that is alternate realities._

 _But in each reflection, something is always different, slanted further from the original reality, until it is a different reflection entirely…._

The Big Apple. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere; at least, that's what they say. What they _don't_ say is that they don't expect you to make it here. Lemme let you in on a little secret: there's a good reason the red, white, and blue is red. It's red from all the predators devourin' the prey and the bleedin' hearts who take an honest man's money and give it to those fat-heads on the street.

No. It ain't right of me to belittle the unfortunate. We've all got our problems in the land of the free, only mine came with the demand of a four-digit number.

"…we feel it would be _premature_ of us to fund research as it holds the potential to be highly volatile and virtually impossible to accomplish with the recent developments in science." I read the uncrumpled decline note, then crumpled it back up again.

How stupid do they think I am? They think flowery words about how underdeveloped science is will distract me from the fact that I know they think I'm too stupid to pull my research off? Slack happy fat-heads.

Two quiet knocks on my apartment door shook me out of my thoughts. Odd, I wasn't expecting any company.

"Mr. Henshaw?" A male voice spoke from the other side. "I'm Mr. Sullivan, your father used to work under my authority before….his accident."

Oh, that. This was something I didn't need in my life, which is why I placed the funeral letter somewhere I wouldn't notice the moment I got it. However, it seemed determined to creep in my life.

Regardless of my feelings, I creaked the door.

"My father worked for you, right?" I questioned.

"Yes, it was a tragic construction accident. All his next of kin have been informed of the details."

"Yeah, I got the letter."

With some reluctance, I let my father's late employer into my apartment which was far from looking like a luxury penthouse. Books and papers full of notes or reports laid strewn all over the ground, my table was adorned with mechanical parts, work tools, and a little space for my plate and silverware.

The walls had more notes taped to them, it seemed the only place that I hadn't touched was the giant window in my living room that gave me a perfect view of the ever-busy New York City, along with a couch I placed right in front of the window. One of the best ideas I ever had.

"The funeral held for your father has passed, but your mother told me that you didn't show. I assumed you weren't informed." Sullivan stated, I turned to see the man had my funeral letter in his hand.

I gave a weary shrug. "He and I, we didn't see eye-to-eye much in the later years." I admitted. "Sides', there was nothing to bury. 'Washed away at sea, no chance of recovery,' right?"

Sullivan gravely nodded. "Unfortunately, this tragedy has been repetitive as of late."

I could only grunt as I offered him a chair and some water.

"Is all this yours?" He questioned, it was about time he addressed the elephant in the room.

"Yeah. My main field is science, but I took a job as a car mechanic to learn how to make mechanical things stick the way I want them too." I explained, gesturing to my table.

"And what do you plan to make?"

"If I tell you, will you fund me?" I bitterly joked, against my better nature.

Sullivan just stared at me with this glance that he understood where I was coming from. "So you have money problems?"

"What an understatement." I groaned. "I dunno why I'm even telling you this. Look, nobody wants to fund a college drop out with a nutty ambition unless I turn out to be a genius with a miracle invention, and that'll never happen until I get funded, and the crazy wheel goes on and on."

"If you aren't funded, how are you able to afford this apartment, these parts?" The man questioned.

"Ain't you nosy. I get side-jobs, work at restaurants when I need to, anything to get the lettuce. It ain't pennies from heaven, but I do what I gotta do. Course, the government doesn't make it that easy for me either."

"The government?"

"Yeah. Pay taxes and all that. Big money leeches, the whole lot of it. How much money did we spend on making bombs that destroy whole cities? That type of power shouldn't have even been discovered, it's not right."

I sighed. "I just…I dunno. Feels like everything's above my pay grade, and I hate that. But I do what I gotta do to get my work finished."

Sullivan nodded. He looked like he had decided on something, something big.

"What if I told you that there was way you can create your inventions without the burdens of the government?"

At first, I thought that he was selling me something. Then he started to explain the purpose of the North Atlantic Project, the dream his employer, Andrew Ryan, had created, how my father died to make this underwater utopia for the hardworking, and how I earned my way in it.

And that is the beginning of how I sent myself to hell.

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 **Well, that's just the beginning of it.**

 **Feel free to review, private message, tell me about how you all feel about a fanfiction like this.**

 **Take care!**


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